A meditation on ... leg hair

As I was helping Boo-Boo get dressed the other day, I noticed something on his legs. It wasn't a new bruise or another scrape. It was leg hair. Light, blond but still manly leg hair. It wasn't much, but it was enough to make me think...

I am raising a man. He's a little boy now, but he will be a man someday (if he doesn't kill himself jumping from some height on the playground first). I carried him in my body for nine months, and lugged his fat self around until he walked at a year, and nursed him for a year and half ... but he's going to be a man someday. A big, strong man -- probably taller than I -- with, yes, leg hair.

Being a mother has made me look at everyone in the world a little differently. I look at a person now and think, "You used to be someone's baby. You used to be carried in someone's arms. You had to learn to crawl and walk and talk."

Sometimes it's astounding to think that we all started so fresh and clean and spotless. I marvel at how smooth and perfectly shaped and physically superb babies are. When did we all get so ... blemished? Dulled? Broken down? The marks and weight of the world are upon us as adults. But remember: We all were someone's beautiful baby once.